


this love is worth the fight

by doc_pickles



Series: TS x Jolex Week [3]
Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: Alex Comes Back, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, a taylor swift lyric for a title again? must be a day that ends in Y, as he should have, semi canon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:46:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26094352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doc_pickles/pseuds/doc_pickles
Summary: I lived like an island, punished you with silenceWent off like sirens, just cryingWhy'd I have to break what I love so much?It's on your face, don't walk away, I need to say…(song: afterglow)
Relationships: Alex Karev/Jo Wilson Karev
Series: TS x Jolex Week [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1892239
Comments: 1
Kudos: 14
Collections: jolex x taylor swift week





	this love is worth the fight

**Author's Note:**

> Fun Fact: I had such a hard time choosing a song from Lover, mainly because there are so many good songs on the list. I almost went with Cruel Summer or Paper Rings because they are SUCH Jolex songs, but I kind of wanted to push myself on this week.  
> I ended up going with Afterglow because I knew it would be perfect for a fluffy fix it fic (my favorite type of Jolex fics hehe) and I really love how it came out. So without further ado, here’s my Afterglow, angst to fluff inspired fix it fic!  
> (Also, technically this *could* be a part two to my Red/I Almost Do fic. I didn’t write it that way but reading it back it could be interpreted that way since I use some of the same plot lines)

The world, for what it’s worth, did not stop spinning when Alex Karev disappeared off the face of it. For a moment, it did feel like everything might come to a grinding halt and Jo Karev’s world would never be the same again. But the nagging feeling, the pressure in her chest that kept her up at night, began to ease the longer and longer Alex refused to answer his wife’s calls. 

Jo finds herself working late nights at the hospital, the lonely hallways a better companion than the quiet loft that she shared with Alex. No one questions her motives, if they do they don’t do it to her face, and for that Jo is grateful. The reprieve from the never ending questions about her well being were getting old, she thinks that Link might’ve yelled at everyone they know to leave her alone. Either way, the quiet moments she spends at night with herself help Jo get her mind into a stable space.

She had come to terms with the realities of her new life, that someday someone would call her and tell her Alex was dead or that he had sent divorce papers or he was in a coma, lying somewhere unable to reach her. It didn’t matter what scenario Jo drummed up, the pain of Alex leaving had come and gone sometime in the past month that she had failed to hear from her husband. 

Her feet are walking across the first floor reception on her way to the ER when Jo hears it. She only pauses for a second at first, because she is absolutely certain that she’s hallucinating things. But she hears it again, her heart and feet stopping in tandem as she listens to the voice that she now knows is really there, really speaking to her.

“Jo!”

Jo’s eyes find Alex standing behind her, hands stuffed into the pockets of his jeans like he does when he’s forced to confront something he doesn’t want to. His beard is thick and scruffy, Jo almost thinks he must not have shaved since the last morning they spent together. Alex’s eyes are tired, his face holds an exhausted expression, and Jo can’t will her feet to move towards the man she had presumed dead. 

“We need to talk,” Alex speaks. Jo hears him, she really does, but she can’t comprehend what he’s saying. “Jo? Are you listening to me?”   
Her brain catches up finally, a hand coming to cover her mouth as Jo lets a sob break through the tension of her and Alex’s reunion. Her feet are the next to recover, moving towards Alex at a frenzied pace. Her hands are around his neck, pulling him close to her as she cries. Jo can feel the breath that Alex releases when her hands make contact with him, relief flooding both of them as they touch for the first time in four and half weeks.

“Jo, I’m so sorry,” the words are a whisper, Alex’s breath hitting Jo’s cheek as he continues to hold her just a little tighter than usual. “I… I’m sorry. I’m just sorry.”

“You came back,” her words are quiet, muffled as she buries her face in Alex’s shoulder. “You're here. You came back.”

Despite telling herself for weeks on end that Alex had left her or was dead somewhere, Jo can’t help the tears that are flowing down her face. In all of the scenarios she had gone through, Alex coming home wasn’t one that she had let herself entertain. The hope would surely break her heart if he did end up being dead or gone somewhere. 

“Of course I came back, I love you Jo,” Alex pulled back to look into Jo’s eyes, fingers coming up to brush her hair out of her eyes. “I love you and I swear I’m not leaving again unless you’re by my side. I just… we have a lot to talk about.”

“I don’t care, I thought you were dead,” Jo cried, eyes welling up with tears again as she grasped Alex’s face desperately. “I don’t care Alex because you came home and that’s all I wanted and-”

“I was with Izzie,” the words freeze Jo, her hands stopping where they were on his cheeks. “Like I said… a lot to talk about”

+

Jo finds herself sitting across from Alex an hour later, fingers nervously pulling at the edge of their sofa. She hadn’t said more than three words since Alex had told her where he had been, too scared of what the next words to come out of his mouth would be. Jo had handled a lot of rejection and pain in her life, but this blow might be the one that undid her well and truly.

“I’m sorry I didn’t answer your calls or texts. I was… busy, distracted and I... ,” Alex sighed, Jo’s eyes finally flitting up to look at him. “When I was calling people for Mer’s trial, Izzie was on my list. And she… she has twins, I could hear them in the background when I talked to her. She told me she used the embryos we had frozen, that the twins were mine. So I went to Kansas, I  _ had _ to go to Kansas and see them. They’re my kids, Jo.”   
The world does seem to stop spinning for a moment, Jo taking in what Alex was telling her. Her stomach dropped, panic welling up inside of her as she realized that Alex had come back to leave her, to build a new life with Izzie and their kids. Jo couldn’t stop the tears that began to silently roll down her face as her heart began to beat out of time.

“Jo? Jo, baby please,” Alex was kneeling in front of her now, hands holding hers in a desperate attempt to get her to listen to him. “Babe, you gotta let me finish. I told you I’m not leaving you, let me finish.”

“You have kids! Somewhere outside of Seattle you have kids and in no universe are you going to know that and stay here with me, Alex,” Jo’s voice was shaking, but the words rolled off her tongue so easily that she knew this was a fear she had held too tightly for too many years. “I meant what I said, you’re a good man. Good men don’t leave their kids thousands of miles away to be with their wife, we both know that all too well.”

Her and Alex hold each other's stares for a moment and Jo wants to scream and kick and beg him not to go. She can see that look on his face, the one that means his mind is far far away and she knows deep down that he’s counting down the seconds until he can leave her and get back to whatever perfect life he had already started to build in Kansas. Of all the people to leave her in her life, she had never anticipated losing Alex, especially not like this. 

“Izzie is remarried, to this great guy named Vince. He… the kids love him and she loves him and…,” Alex let out a small chuckle, tears welling up in his eyes as well. “It’s exactly the life I had pictured for her. She’s happy and she’s alive, she’s got some great kids and I don’t… I don’t feel the need to stay there and be a dad to those kids because that perfect life Izzie has? I want that, I want a big house and kids running around like crazy and I want it all with you, Jo Karev. I can’t picture that with anyone but you. And I’m sorry that it took weeks of me laying alone in a hotel room in freakin’ Kansas to realize that, but I love you so much, Jo. I don’t ever wanna not see you again.”

Jo stared at Alex for a moment longer before reaching a hand up and slapping his shoulder. The worry she had been holding onto, the fear that he was going to leave for this new life, slipped away and Jo almost cried at the relief she felt. She wasn’t shocked that he had wanted to see his kids, see the two little people who were half him. And if you had asked her, Jo would’ve bet money on Alex insisting that he needed to help raise them. But he didn't… he came back home to her. 

“Fucking asshole! Maybe you should’ve started with the ‘I’m staying in Seattle’ part so I didn’t start spiraling out,” Jo exclaimed, her hands coming up to hold Alex’s face, just as he had done for her. She met his nervous eyes with a smile, leaning down to kiss him chastely. “I’m glad you aren’t left wondering about what could’ve been, about them. But maybe call me next time? Please?”

Alex nodded, Jo’s fingers running over the thick beard on his cheek as she kissed him once more. She knew that he would need time, that despite him coming back home to her seeing his kids was a huge shock. Alex had stood by her side more times than she deserved though, walking him through this was nothing compared to the psycho ex husband and the biological mom trauma that she had saddled him with. 

“I want it all with you too, you crazy man. White picket fences and a dog and kids and everything we didn’t get growing up,” Jo let a chuckle slip from her as she rested her forehead against Alex’s. “I missed you so much, I’m gonna keep you in bed for a few days just to make sure you remember what you’d be missing if you left me.”

Alex’s deep laugh sounds then, the sound that Jo had been so desperately craving to hear. She kisses him again, hungrily brushing her tongue against his lips and pulling him onto the couch without a second thought. 

“I promise you Jo,” Alex’s breath is hot against Jo as his fingers trail under her shirt. She fights off the urge to close her eyes in pleasure and meets his eyes again. “I’m always gonna come back home to you.” 


End file.
